“I Need A Boyfriend By Tomorrow,” The Plus-Size Ma…

“I Need A Boyfriend By Tomorrow,” The Plus-Size Maid Whispered—Her Mafia Boss Heard Everything…

I told my sister I needed a fake boyfriend for one day because I couldn’t bear to disappoint my dying grandmother again. I thought nobody heard me. I was wrong. The next morning, three black SUVs rolled up outside her New Jersey nursing home, and Damien DeMarco—the terrifying man whose mansion I cleaned for a living—stepped out, took my hand, and called me “sweetheart.” What started as a ridiculous lie turned into something far more dangerous when his wealthy fiancée threatened my grandmother, security cameras captured everything, forged messages appeared, and Damien was forced to choose between the woman his world expected him to marry and the maid everyone thought was disposable.

PART 1: My fake boyfriend arrived in three black SUVs.

“I need a boyfriend by tomorrow, or Grandma is going to realize I lied to her.”

I whispered it into my phone while standing in the library of Damien DeMarco’s mansion with a feather duster in one hand and exactly fourteen dollars in my checking account.

My sister went silent.

Then she said, “Phoebe, that is not a boyfriend problem. That is a psychiatric emergency.”

“Very funny.”

“I’m serious. You invented a fiancé.”

“I did not invent a fiancé.”

“You told Grandma you were seeing someone.”

“Technically.”

“Then you told her it was serious.”

“She was in the hospital.”

“Then you told her you might marry him.”

“She had oxygen tubes in her nose, Melissa.”

“And tomorrow she expects to meet him.”

I closed my eyes.

That was the problem.

My grandmother Evelyn had congestive heart failure, a stubborn streak, and the emotional subtlety of a police siren.

Eight months earlier, my real boyfriend had dumped me in the parking lot of a Cheesecake Factory after informing me that he was “not attracted to women who had stopped trying.”

By “stopped trying,” he meant I was still plus-size after losing thirty pounds.

By “relationship,” he apparently meant I should be grateful he had tolerated me.

I drove home, threw his hoodie into a Goodwill bin, and blocked his number before I reached my apartment.

I would have been fine.

Grandma wasn’t.

She had just come out of the hospital in Montclair, New Jersey, and kept asking who would look after me if something happened to her.

So I lied.

Just a little.

I told her there was someone.

Then there was a name.

Then there were imaginary dinner dates.

The imaginary man acquired a good job, decent manners, and a completely fictional interest in my grandmother’s peach cobbler.

I never planned for him to become a fiancé.

Grandma did that part herself.

I just failed to correct her.

Now she was turning eighty-one and wanted one thing.

Meet him.

“I’ll figure something out,” I told Melissa.

“With who?”

“I don’t know. A guy.”

“What guy?”

“Any guy.”

“You work twelve-hour shifts cleaning a mansion owned by a man people are afraid to make eye contact with.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“Ask one of his security guys.”

“I’d rather eat drywall.”

Melissa laughed.

I didn’t.

“I just need a boyfriend for tomorrow.”

My voice cracked on the last word.

That embarrassed me more than the lie.

I ended the call, wiped my face with the heel of my palm, turned around—

—and walked directly into Damien DeMarco.

I stopped so hard my sneaker squeaked against the hardwood.

He stood six feet away in a charcoal suit, one hand in his pocket.

No expression.

No warning.

Damien was thirty-eight, Italian-American, absurdly controlled, and wealthy enough that magazines referred to his business empire as “private holdings” because nobody seemed completely sure where the holdings ended.

People in North Jersey had another description.

The DeMarco family.

Nobody said mafia around him.

Mostly because people enjoyed remaining employed.

I swallowed.

“Mr. DeMarco.”

His eyes moved briefly toward the phone in my hand.

Then back to my face.

“Phoebe.”

That was it.

He walked past me.

I exhaled.

Maybe he hadn’t heard.

At 8:13 the next morning, I learned that Damien DeMarco heard everything.

I was outside St. Anne’s Senior Living in Montclair wearing a blue wrap dress I’d bought at Target the night before.

My sister had failed to locate a fake boyfriend.

My backup plan was to claim he had food poisoning.

Then three black SUVs turned into the driveway.

I stared.

The first stopped near the entrance.

A man in a dark suit stepped out.

Then another.

Then Damien.

My stomach dropped so fast I thought I might actually be sick.

He walked toward me like arriving at a nursing home with an apparent motorcade was a completely normal Saturday morning.

“Mr. DeMarco?”

He stopped in front of me.

“What are you doing here?”

“You said you needed a boyfriend.”

I stared at him.

He had heard.

Every humiliating word.

“I was talking to my sister.”

“I’m aware.”

“You cannot just—”

The automatic doors opened behind me.

“Phoebe?”

Grandma.

I turned.

Evelyn stood in the lobby leaning on her walker, silver hair freshly curled, wearing the lavender cardigan she saved for occasions she considered important.

Her face lit up when she saw me.

Then she noticed Damien.

Then his cars.

Then the men by the curb.

Oh, God.

“Grandma—”

Damien took my hand.

My brain stopped.

His palm was warm.

Steady.

Not gripping.

Not theatrical.

Just enough to make the lie look real.

“Sorry I’m late, sweetheart.”

I nearly died on the sidewalk.

Grandma’s mouth opened.

Her eyes moved from him to me.

Then back to him.

“You must be the mysterious fiancé.”

I made a noise that may have been a cough.

Damien didn’t blink.

He stepped forward and offered her his hand.

“Damien DeMarco.”

Grandma stared.

“DeMarco?”

There were people in New Jersey who reacted to that last name the way Midwesterners reacted to tornado sirens.

Damien smiled politely.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked at me.

“The man you work for?”

I wanted the pavement to open.

“That’s how we met,” Damien said.

Technically true.

I shot him a look.

Grandma smiled.

“Well, don’t stand outside like we’re waiting for an Uber. Come in.”

That was how one of the most feared men I had ever met ended up eating dry chicken in a nursing-home dining room beneath a poster advertising Tuesday bingo.

Grandma interrogated him.

“How long have you been together?”

“Not long enough.”

I kicked him under the table.

His expression never changed.

“What do you like about my granddaughter?”

He paused.

Finally.

I thought I had him.

Then he looked at me.

“You should ask her what she likes about me first.”

Traitor.

Grandma turned.

“Well?”

“He’s punctual.”

Damien’s eyebrow lifted.

Grandma stared at me.

“Punctual?”

“He respects schedules.”

“You’re describing an accountant.”